Today starts my third competition prep cycle and that means a few things: new goals, new workouts, changing my eating slightly.

Sadly last Thursday was my last cupcake – it glorious. I do have a sugar cookie planned for later this week, but during prep I prefer to have foods in my plan that are easily trackable, which means I want to be preparing them. While I would love to continue my cupcake and doughnut consumption through prep that’s not realistic if I want to do well. Recently, I came across the Instagram account @sarahlynnfitness. Sarah was diagnosed with celiac disease last year, which as many of you know means she had to change her diet. She created recipes that are healthier versions of some of our favorite cookies.

After following her account for about a week and checking out her web site, I decided that buying her cookie cookbook could help fill the void that has been left in my heart by cupcakes and doughnuts. Her recipes are gluten-free, mostly vegan and refined sugar free. They’re also low in fat and high in protein – that was key for me.

I emailed Sarah to introduce myself and get her permission to bake all her cookies over prep and review them. She gave me her blessing and to kick off prep I decided to start today. Instead of jumping around the book, I decided to start at the beginning and work my way through. There are 20 recipes and I have a 12 and 13 week prep – so carefully planned I can make 1 to 2 recipes a week depending on other things I have planned. The macro nutrients for all the recipes would potentially allow you to eat all the cookies in one sitting or a portion of them, I guess it depends on your inner fat kid. Regardless of eating the whole batch or a portion, I think this will be pretty fun the next few weeks.

It did take some effort to hunt down some of the ingredients so keep that in mind – Amazon may be your best friend! I used many Bob’s Red Mill products because they were the easiest to find.

Today’s cookie is from the class cookie section at the very beginning. It’s a favorite I know and love, and know for sure that Phoebe Buffay would be on board too – chocolate chip cookies.

Notes on this recipe:

I loved that they really are individual recipes. It makes it easier to plan when to have the leftovers!

If you love coconut this will be up your alley.

If you like or love Almond Joys this may be up your alley: between the coconut flour, coconut oil and chocolate chips there’s a hint of the sitting on a beach with your toes in the sand.

I used tapioca pearls instead of tapioca starch, but if you grind them with a food processor or coffee grinder they work as effectively. You will have some pieces of the pearls, which are the little dots you see in the photo below.

Dough is sticky from the coconut oil, but don’t be scared of using your hands to form your cookies.

Sarah suggests you watch oven as they bake, I suggest the same thing. This recipe yielded 9 mini cookies, but because the macros were solid, I divided the dough in half and made 2 big cookies – this definitely changes the baking time.

Overall, I like the cookie. They’re still soft like the traditional recipe, but the texture is slightly different. Coconut flour is very thick, which I believe makes the cookie dense. Nothing wrong with this at all. I would definitely make these again when JP is home.

Macros for 1 cookie: 5.2F/24.1C/5.4P. My macros are slightly higher because I did use a different brand of protein powder – so keep that in mind. The macros are still excellent, but even slight changes will change the nutritional value.

If you’re interested in getting a daily dose of Sarah’s food porn out her Instagram! If you’re interested in getting your hands on the recipe, check out her web site.